OUR RAILWAYS AND OUR FARMERS.

Evening Star, Issue 8084, 7 December 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR RAILWAYS AND OUR FARMERS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sia,—l think there will be universal agreement with your remarks this evening in your article upon the Farmers' Conference, that " What has to be considered is whether the railways are to be regarded as a mercantile speculation, or as a means to be used for the advancement and settlement of the country. In both ways they are at present a failure. . . . If the millions were borrowed for making our lines in the hope of making a profit out of them before the country is more fully settled it was a very mistaken policy.' I was recently in a remote part of the country reached by railway which I had not visited for several years, but which I should probably visit several tiroes annually if the fares were a third or a quarter of what they now are. I talked with a number of settlers about their position and prospects. Some said they would be glad if I could hear of anyone who would bny them out, andprettyunanimouslythey complained that, having spent their time, labor, and money on Government lands which they, had taken up, they saw no chance of anything but the most precarious subsistence, if even that, because of the enormous cost of getting anything they raised to a market. The district is not surpassed for fruit growing, but fruit is not being grown for the reason indicated, and dairy and other produce, except the little locally consumed, is rendered unprofitable by thesamemeans.whilehighfarespreventalocal demand by restraining travelling in a part of the country which every New Zealander and stranger would delight to see. What is the use of attempting to settle remote country lands if the further people go inland the more difficult it is made for them to live, and the dearer their produce is made to the consumer, notwithstanding that Government railways connect them with popnlons centres and porta ? Let the railways be as free as the roads; let freights and fares be arranged to meet cost of rolling stock, sheds, and labor only ; and let interest on cost of permanent ways and their maintenance come out of general taxation. The reduced cost of produce of all kindß would more than compensate us all as consumers for the increase of taxation; the Government would not be impoverished; people would as willingly settle far from towns as near them; our produce would morejsuccessfully compete with that of other countries in the world's markets; our settlers would be prosperous; their numbers would soon immensely increase; manufactures and town trade would develop accordingly; for business and pleasure the travelling public would be vastly multiplied; this would mean increased circulation of money; the cheap travelling would bring great crowds to New Zealand to see its wonders and beauty; the cheapness of travelling and living in suoh a country would tempt them to stay; and after a few years of development of the colony by this means we should all say what idiots we were not to see these things long before. In the meantime we most continue to get our fruit from Tasmania, and pay dearly for it; suffer only the few who are wealthy to see the sights of this lovely land; strangle every settler who follows the railway far inland for having the hardihood to do so; and pay 6d or 4d to go from Dunedin to Pelichet Bay wile the tram takes us along the parallel distance for Id. This question is worth making the main policy question at the next general election, and the resolution of the farmers to make it such puts us all under a debt of gratitude. May they be rewarded by a splendid and triumphant following in the policy they have so sensibly determined on.—l am, etc., Idiot. Dunedin, December 4.